


Long, Lonely Time

by Findswoman



Series: The Lasan Series [21]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: (but tastefully I hope), Desire, F/M, Kissing, Lasan, Lasat, Lira San, Post-Series, Pre-Series, Reunion after separation, Songfic, Talking about wanting to have sex, and she makes no bones about it, long separation, shameless self-indulgence on this author's part, unchained melody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findswoman/pseuds/Findswoman
Summary: At different points in his life and relationship with Shulma, Zeb ponders desire and waiting, and how they always seem to go together.
Relationships: Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios/Original Character(s)
Series: The Lasan Series [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/967674
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Long, Lonely Time

**Author's Note:**

> Songfic of sorts based on [“Unchained Melody”](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=32O9lM61Rpc) by the Righteous Brothers, which I have long considered Zeb and Shulma's song. The [OTP #17: Our Song](https://boards.theforce.net/posts/56923747) challenge at JCF gave me the opportunity to write a story for them based on it, and I also managed to work in the prompt I received in another JCF challenge, the [Romantic Quotes Roulette](https://boards.theforce.net/threads/romantic-quotes-roulette.50054530/); you’ll see more details in the end notes. Many thanks as always to **Raissa_Baiard** for beta reading and helping me achieve a good balance with the romantic aspects.

**One**  
  
_Oh, my love, my darling,_  
_I've hungered for your touch_  
_A long, lonely time..._  
_And time goes by so slowly,_  
_And time can do so much._  
_Are you still mine?_  
_I need your love,_  
_I need your love,_  
_God speed your love to me._  
  
**Lasan, 24–23 BBY**  
  
Zeb was a very physical sort.  
  
He had always been that way. Even as a young kit, there was nothing that made him feel so happy, so whole, as the thrill of the run, the climb, the hunt, the fight. He was proud of the strong physique that he had developed as he grew to adulthood, proud of the new strength, speed, agility, and endurance it brought him. Now, as an Honor Guard, he was not only using those strengths to defend his people and homeworld—he was also pushing his strengths to new limits, and discovering new ones each day. It was exhilarating. He loved it.  
  
And now, with Shulma in the picture—lovely Shulma of the stone-green eyes, the luscious purple-black hair, the swirling stripes the color of deep wine…  
  
It was barely a dust season since they’d started seeing each other, but already she’d awakened in him a new kind of strength, a new kind of physical exhilaration. One could almost call it a new kind of hunger. He found himself longing for her touch as for water on a hot day. Without her, hours, days, and weeks of the usual Honor Guard cadet life—assignments, exercises, expeditions, exams—became an intolerable, grinding wait. Even holidays with his family seemed to pass more slowly than ever.  
  
But then he’d finally be with her, with her pressed up against him and wrapped around him and breathing her sweet breath so close to his face—and aw karabast, it was like a million bo-rifle sparks going off all at once deep inside him, again and again and again, and he just wanted to take her in his arms and—and— _aw, yeah, talk about pushing his physical limits—_  
  
He wondered if she felt it, too. Did she burn for him the way he did for her? She was such a spiritual, intellectual type, after all. Did girls like her even _get_ feelings like that? Karabast, what would she think of him?  
  
He decided he would take the chance and ask her.  
  
It was on one of their walks through the cliff country, toward dusk, when the growing season had decked the sunwashed crags with wildflowers. They were not far from Amethyst Falls and could hear the gentle rush of its waters as they walked.  
  
“Er, Shulma?” he began.  
  
“Yes, Zeblove?”  
  
_Zeblove_ —such a silly nickname, and Shai was always joshing him about it, the little Bogan—and yet it always awakened those same deep-burning sparks. “What d’you think about… er… well… erm…”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“About… well, y’know… bein’.. together. Like, y’know… really bein’ together. Like… close.” He crossed his fingers as if to illustrate the point, then quickly uncrossed them.  
  
“Oh!” She started and purpled slightly. “Like... making love?”  
  
“Yeah yeah yeah, that!” His response was half eager, half self-conscious.  
  
“Well…”  
  
Meanwhile, they walked on, around the edge of a cliff and into full view of Amethyst Falls. Its fine spray and gushing roar now filled the summer air. Near it, a low, flat boulder, crusted with soft mosses, formed a natural bench. Shulma squeezed Zeb’s hand more tightly and pulled him gently to sit on it beside her. A small gesture, but one that never failed to get his fire roaring.  
  
“So, er, I mean... is it something you’d wanna… like… _do,_ y’know?” he asked at last, quietly but expectantly.  
  
“Yes, of course.” She nudged close to him, nuzzling his shoulder and face. “Someday.”  
  
“Some… day?”  
  
“Well, Zeblove,” she replied, nuzzling him again (and closer, and warmer), “it is no small thing, you know, to share your entire being with another like that.”  
  
He nuzzled back. “Heh, yeah, true, I guess.”  
  
She slipped an arm around him. “The ancients say that when we… come together in that way, we become one not only with each other but with Lasan itself.”  
  
“Aw, heh, those _ancients,_ they _would_ say that _…_ ”  
  
“They know what they are talking about, dearest. It is a great and thrilling and awesome thing. That’s why I’ve always thought it’s probably best to wait till we’re bonded in marriage.” She ruffled his jaw fringe. “Think you can stick it out, ai Garazeb?”  
  
“Heh, yeah, I guess,” he half-sighed. “I’m an Honor Guard, after all. If I can run from here to the Southern Plateaus with a broken leg an’ a gut wound…” Both of them laughed and nuzzled each other again. “I dunno. It’s just, like… when we’re together, an’ even when we’re not, I start thinkin’ all sorts of... _thoughts_ about us”— _that’s one way of putting it,_ he thought to himself, breathing in the perfume of her hair—“and I sometimes wonder… I wonder if you…”  
  
“...feel it, too? Yes, Zeblove, yes.” She stretched up to plant a kiss on his jawline. “Of course I do. With my whole being.”  
  
“Aw darlin’...”  
  
“Because it is part of my whole being, part of my love for you, and that is no less true even while we are waiting.” Her arm was still around him and he could feel her hand caressing his back. “It is as the ancient poet said: ‘Want is the heat of true Love’s fire, the life-glow of our mortal being…’”  
  
“Heh, whatever y’ say…” But his heart was saying _aw yeah_ to her warmth, her closeness, her touch… He slid an arm around her, caressed her waist with a strong hand.  
  
“‘It grants our highest nature’s wish’”—she leaned into his hold, upward to meet his face, _aw karabast, those eyes_ —“‘by giving voice to its silent song’—O ai Garazeb—”  
  
“Shulma…” Warmer, closer, stronger…  
  
...till their kiss burned and glowed and sang amid the spray of the waterfall.

* * *

**Two**  
  
_Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea,_  
_To the open arms of the sea._  
_Yes, lonely rivers sigh, “Wait for me, wait for me,_  
_I'll be coming home, wait for me.”_  
  
**Lira San, 3 BBY**  
  
_With a grunt of exertion, Garazeb Orrelios pulls himself over the last jagged, pearl-white crag and up to standing. Here, at last, he can see all of Lira San’s southern continent, from majestic white mountains to rolling hills to lush forests, all seeming to glow in the gold-orange sky. Through it all the three clear, deep blue rivers of Lira San’s southern continent wind their way slowly, calmly, down toward a vast, sparkling sea (Lasan had had no sea, only lakes) that fills the entire horizon._  
  
_An awesome view, well worth the long climb. He had best enjoy it while he can, because this is his last dayhere and in just a few more hours he’ll have to take the_ Phantom _back and continue the fight. This place isn’t his home yet. But right now, he can just stand under that gold orange sky, watch those rivers roll their lonely paths down to that big sea, and just think about things._  
  
_And he thinks about all the time in his life that he has spent waiting._  
  
_That’s kind of what being an Honor Guard was, after all: standing guard to defend his homeworld and his fellow Lasat. That’s kind of what it’s like even now sometimes, when he’s put on security duty, staying behind to guard the_ Ghost _while the others are out on a mission. But even as a kit it seemed he was always waiting for his parents or older sisters or other adults to do or say_ somethin’ _before he could do_ anythin’. _As a cadet and young Guardsman, he was always waiting for orders and assignments. Then there was Shulma, and those long, hard years while he was advancing his rank and she was completing her studies, and while they were both waiting for their marriage bond and… all that came with it. (He still remembers her, and that day by Amethyst Falls, and it still sets off those sparks deep inside him.)_  
  
_Then their repeated unsuccessful attempts to to conceive a kit, then the arrival of the Empire and the tense, hateful years of escalation—_ karabast, try not to think about that, any of it—  
  
_Then after the destruction, after he had awakened to find himself pinned beneath the ruins of the palace, when he couldn’t even move or call out and could barely breathe, and thought he was just waiting to die. Not to mention all those years drifting around aimlessly here and there in the Galaxy, before he met Kanan and Hera and could finally start to think he was someone again. That was waiting, too, even if he hadn’t known it._  
  
_And now, Zeb thinks, as he stands here atop this white cliff under this gold-orange sky, looking out at those rivers and that sea, he’s got something new to wait for. Something good, something beautiful: this place. It’s different, it’s not home (because nothing will ever be), but it’s_ somethin’. _Someday, when this war and everything are over (whenever that is), he’ll come back, just like those rivers that always roll on to the sea. The sea always waits for them, so maybe Lira San will wait for him, too. Till then, he will watch and wait for any other Lasat that may be out there, and show them the way._  
  
_The sun’s dark gold is starting to sink. It is now time to climb down and go back. Garazeb Orrelios takes one more look out toward the sea, places hand over fist in salute._  
  
_“I’ll be comin’ home,” he says. “Wait for me.”_

* * *

**Three**  
  
_Oh, my love, my darling,_  
_I've hungered for your touch_  
_A long, lonely time..._  
_And time goes by so slowly,_  
_And time can do so much._  
_Are you still mine?_  
_I need your love,_  
_I need your love,_  
_God speed your love to me._  
  
**Khorassan, 0 ABY**  
  
Zeb woke up first. With a jolt.  
  
With a jolt, because—to his considerable surprise—he was not in his bunk aboard the _Amarcordia,_ the Alliance transport frigate he had traveled on with some of the other Rebels in order to come to this place for the festival to begin with. He wasn’t even on the _Ghost._ No, he was in a room. With furniture and windows and curtains (and sunlight filtering through the curtains) and a balcony and a real bed.  
  
And in that real bed, beside him, was _her._  
  
Shulma. His Shulma. His darlin’. Still wrapped in her flowy white Festival Queen outfit. And no, she wasn’t a dream or a vision or a hallucination or anything like that, because he could hear her breathing and smell her hair and _feel_ her, karabast it.  
  
His thoughts and feelings were a jumble. Okay, so, it was real, she was real, and so was the whole thing the night before where they stood up on that cliff and kissed—but now what? Well, they were together again, that was what, and they were going to stay together just like they had promised to, all those years before when old Chava had lightning-bonded them in front of all their family and friends. But it had been so long—what was it, a decade? He remembered that kiss, how sweet it had been—but he was worried, mostly about himself. After so long and all they’d both been through, could he still love her like he used to? Could she still love him at all? And now that they were together again, where were they going to go next? Back to the Alliance? How would that work? Where would they stay? What would the others think of it all? Did that even matter?  
  
Not to mention that deep, hungering burn in his core—long dormant, but in the way a volcano is dormant. The one he’d felt he’d felt on their wedding night, on the morning after it, and so many other times, so long ago—  
  
_Okay, okay. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Orrelios._ He took a deep breath, a few of them. Maybe he just needed to think a bit. Maybe he’d just go out to that balcony for a bit and look out over the city and the cliffs (and he seemed to remember a river, too) and wait till she got up. He was used to waiting, after all.  
  
No sooner had he pulled himself out of bed than he heard the sound of the covers rustling and shifting and a yawn (a beautiful, deep, female yawn). She was now turned toward him, stretching. Her emerald eyes flashed open as she, too, awoke with a jolt.  
  
“Whoa, easy there, darlin’!”  
  
She said nothing but placed her hand tentatively on his arm, then pulled it back, then placed it there again, then stroked it upward to his shoulder, to his neck, his beard, and his face.  
  
“Zeb… love…”  
  
“Heh, yeah, it’s me… who else?”  
  
“No one else!” So saying, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He responded—both to her touch and the fire that roared up inside him—by gripping her close and tumbling her down onto the bed, and there they remained locked in their fiery embrace for several beautiful, fiery moments.  
  
“Oh, love…” she said, when they separated at last, catching their breath.  
  
“Darlin’...”  
  
“Oh, you don’t know how many times I’ve awakened in the morning to see you lying beside me, smiling—and I reached over to touch you, and then you disappeared like a fever vision because you _were_ a fever vision—”  
  
“Aw, darlin’—”  
  
“—but not this time, this time you didn’t—my Zeblove is really here, and—oh, dearest—” She pulled gently out of her husband’s embrace. “I’m sorry, please just give me a few minutes.”  
  
“Aw, darlin’, we were just gettin’ started, heh, heh…!”  
  
“I know, I know… it’s just—I just—need to write in my journal for a bit.”  
  
“ _Journal?!_ What the—? _Why?_ ”  
  
“I know, I’m sorry—I’m just so full of thoughts and feelings and _you_ right now that I—need to set it down in writing. It won’t take long, I promise. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”  
  
“All right, all right.” Zeb sighed. Yeah, this was Shulma he knew, his shaman with her journals, even in bed—she had done the very same thing many times before, in the old days. He watched her as she shifted into a sitting position, took a stylus and a small book from the bedside table, and began writing busily in it. He noticed a few of the words that flowed onto the page. Her handwriting had always been a bit… fancy, especially when she was feeling really inspired or whatever, but he could make out some things about the Ashla and hearts and souls and bodies.  
  
And _his name._ His heart leapt. Well, that was a good sign, anyway!  
  
Well, karabast, he thought, if his _own_ thoughts were such a jumble, then hers probably were, too, and maybe this was how she sorted them out, and maybe she just needed a little time. As for him, maybe now was a good time to go out on that balcony and think for a little while. “Be back in a bit,” Zeb said as he leaned over to kiss his wife on the brow ridge.  
  
She kissed him back. “All right, dearest.”  
  
He got up, went to the ’fresher, washed up a bit, and went out the curtains and double doors to the balcony. It was mid-morning, with a summer sun high in the sky, washing the distant cliffs in gold and kindling the river with sparkles. He stood looking at it for several minutes, and as he did he began to compare the scene before him to similar scenes he remembered from Lasan and to the magnificent panorama from his last few hours on Lira San. Cliffs: check, but red instead of purple-gray like Lasan’s or white like Lira San’s. Rivers: check, but only one, like the northern continent of Lasan, where Lira San’s southern continent had three. Distant: sparkling sea, check. Sunlight: yeah, definitely check…  
  
_Suddenly, he feels a warmth beside him, a gentle touch on his arm. It is Shulma, come out to join him on the balcony. She has taken off the Festival Queen’s white robes and is now clad in a simple flowing red dress of the sort she always used to wear. Her long hair is still loose, but she has put in her ring-medallion._  
  
_And she slides her hand down his arm to tug gently, longingly on his hand, and says, “I’m done now.”_  
  
_And that is when Zeb knows. With mighty, striped freedom-fighter arms he gathers her into an embrace that burns, glows, and sings. A little later he will ask her, once again, what she thinks about being…_ like… close, _just like he did that time by the falls long ago. Just like in those old times, it will take both of them time and thought. But for now he will hold her in the sunlight, where their closeness is brightness and desire and Lasan and Lira San._  
  
**fin**

**Author's Note:**

> The poem Shulma quotes in part one (“Want is the heat of true Love’s fire...”) is a paraphrase of the prompt I received in the [Romantic Quotes Roulette](https://boards.theforce.net/threads/romantic-quotes-roulette.50054530/): “Where true Love burns Desire is Love’s pure flame; / It is the reflex of our earthly frame, / That takes its meaning from the nobler part, / And but translates the language of the heart” (“Desire,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge).


End file.
